


keep me in the open

by seaofeels



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: (author does not know a thing about polisci and is not too fussed about it), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Fëanor Lives, Multi, That's Not How International Relations Work, and becomes king in exile and has to be professional when his ex comes to visit, curufinwë fëanáro is Pining and Miserable and it serves him right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:54:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22406050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seaofeels/pseuds/seaofeels
Summary: Fëanáro had sworn to send the ships back, and with them whatever word there might be of Elwë and those of his people who had remained to search for him, and Olwë had let him go. And when they came to bear over Nolofinwë's people, the word was that Elwë was alive and married and ruling in peace and prosperity. And when they came to bear over Arafinwë's children, the word was that Fëanáro was at death's door, but Melkor was driven to the very depths of his mountains. And when the ships came the last time to their own harbors, the word was that Fëanáro lived, and ruled in a city greater even than Tirion in all its glory, and when the news reached him Arafinwë sighed and said, "Fuck it," and began planning an embassy to his brother to open trade negotiations.
Relationships: Fëanor | Curufinwë/Nerdanel, Nerdanel/OFC (not quite but enough to be awkward)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 45





	keep me in the open

"Ambassador." She nods, gracefully, noting with perhaps more of her attention than she would like how well the crisp, practical lines of his new robes suit him. Kingship rests easy on his shoulders, and if she will have to spend the entire mission at war between anger and reluctant admiration, she may give her commission up as a foolish decision and go back home on the next boat. But they had said she might be able to discomfit him, just enough to win better terms of trade with the newly prosperous kingdom of exiles, and for the sake of poor Arafinwë's economy, she had agreed. 

"Your Highness." He stiffens, and oh, yes, that would be why they sent her. "I bear greetings from Arafinwë Ingoldo, lord of the Noldor in the West, and from Manwë Sulimo and Varda Elentári." The corners of his eyes tighten in a way that she doesn't think anyone else would have noticed, and she thinks that this might be very easy after all. If all that it takes is a calculated accent and a little bit of a chill, she'll be able to go home with her work done within the week.

"I thank you for the message," he says. She knows him well enough to hear the thread of forced calm beneath the words, and awards herself another point scored. "Any word from the West is welcome in these lands, even if it is only greetings – and if, as I think, you bear a heavier commission, you are doubly welcome. The journey is a long one from the high arches of Tirion-upon-Túna, and you will doubtless wish to rest before we open negotiations in earnest. I hope I will see you at the evening meal?" 

"My thanks for the kindness of your reception," she tells him, matching him point for point with cool diffidence. "It would be an honor." The honor of it is dubious, when they both remember years of slapdash dinners in dusty corners of their workshops and the months it took to convince Tyelkormo to use a knife instead of his teeth alone. Judging by the twist in the smile he gives her, she's fairly sure the same thing is in his mind. 

She's gratified to see that Tyelkormo still knows how to use a knife, even though the meal is served Sindarin-style from one great side of venison on the hearth. She is less gratified to hear half her aides whispering where they think she cannot hear them about how they will be loyal to Arafinwë until the day they die, "but _damned_ if a crown doesn't suit him after all." It's not as though she feels she still has some claim to him. She would be furious if he thought he still had a right to her affections – though if he's still pining, as she suspects, she's not above a little manipulation for the greater good. It's only a mild irritation that they're right: that in a dark cowl and a tunic cut to show his arms bare to the shoulders he looks every inch the wild northland king he has become, and she resents how well it shows on him.

They argue, quiet and civil and achingly diplomatic, about sovereignty and maritime law and the regulations on half a hundred imports and exports and who is allowed to tax what, and given how he winces and gives ground on a dozen of her points, she would think the entire endeavor a success. However, he also winces his way through remaining steadfast on two dozen of the more important ones, and with a growing sense of dread she realizes that they might be at this longer than a week. Dinner is strained that night. She knows that her sons can tell she is angry with him (though she also knows he must have personally taken over the kitchens that night; plenty of friends welcomed her to their own tables for weeks after they separated, but she's never found anyone who seasons duck quite the way he does.) She sits on her resentment and smiles her way through the meal, and pretends not to hear her aides gossiping at the other end of the table, where they think the chatter will mask their voices – she will always have a keener ear for word of him; it is one of the drawbacks of marriage.

A week later, and they have gotten nowhere. She is more than able to make him flush and trip over his tongue when they debate policy, but it does little good when he refuses to back down even though it takes him three seconds longer to marshal his arguments than usual. (It does some good. She feels a little less guilty about staring at the new ridges of scarring along his forearms, that she hears her aides whisper are from fighting Valaraukar when the Exiles first came to the north, before they penned Moringotto so deeply into his fortress that he has not come out for a century.)

Her only consolation is that her boys have finally gotten over their awkwardness around her. By unspoken agreement neither she or Fëanáro bring up the fact that Tyelkormo spends his free afternoons dangling from the tree outside her window and telling her all the new stories he has learned from the birds on this continent, or that Atarinkë brings her the latest drafts of his research on bioluminescence in the peat beds of the Fen of Serech for her editor’s eye. They did not bring the children into it when they separated three centuries ago, and they are not going to start now.

Two weeks have gone by – they have not made an inch of progress, either of them, in the last three days, and both of their tempers are the worse for it – and to think she had expected she might be well on her way back to Valinor by now. Sometimes she wishes she were not constrained by the etiquette of international relations, and could tell him flatly how idiotic he is being. (Perhaps it's for the best; if she were free to do as she liked, she might kiss him.) 

If there is one consolation in all of this, it is that he is obviously not handling it any better than she is. She is willing to allow herself a decent amount of flushing and tongue-tying and nerves as long as she is not the only one, and as long as she is maintaining her veneer of composure better than he is. And in the end, there's nothing for it but to hold her chin a little higher and remind herself that she is not going to forgive everything he said when they parted just because he is very handsome with his hair cut shorter than he ever would have dared in Valinor. (He has the good sense not to attempt an apology for that last night before he left. Things are difficult enough even when they are pretending to be professionals.)

Three weeks, and they are perhaps even farther from a satisfactory agreement than they were when they started out. She's fairly sure that if she offered to give up her position as ambassador of the Western Noldor and move in with him as queen-in-exile he would agree to anything she asked, but short of that, she doubts she'll get much from him. She has not been able to leverage his obvious attachment for anything more than his agreement that the offshore waters between them are to remain neutral territory. She might, perhaps, be making some headway in persuading him to abandon the national docking fee applied in addition to the cost of the local councils' trade permits, but as far as his insistence on barring the shipment of any kind of weaponry is concerned, she might be trying to reason with one of the great basalt columns she saw sailing into the chilly little bay. She desperately wants to see that bay again, this time leaving it; she desperately wants to get away from him and the sharp laughing line of his eyebrows and the angled bone of his wrist that she sees so often as he jots down failed compromise after failed compromise. But they are slow to convince each other, as they usually are when they argue, and so day after day passes with only the slightest progress.

Three weeks, and a delegation comes from Elu Thingol in the south, hoping to discuss sending a proper embassy overseas to Olwë and Ingwë and Arafinwë, and someday drafting a formal alliance. Their ambassador is a tall woman with silver hair even shorter than Fëanáro’s close crop and dark, laughing eyes, and she treads the flagstones of the new-built halls like they're worth less to her than the dust on her cloak. For all Nerdanel can tell, they likely are. Fëanáro is cordial to her; they are apparently old foes already – but she sees Nerdanel and bows low, winks as she straightens, offers her hand as they go in to dinner. Her name is Orthelian, her mother is blood-sisters with Melian, and she does not make much of a secret of her admiration for Nerdanel's face and voice and build. Most importantly, when Nerdanel compliments the delicate silver chains danging from her filigreed ear cuffs, Fëanáro offers up a chance at a handful of mining rights in the mountains just south of Moringotto's old territory the next day. They will cost a pretty penny, and the offered regions are almost ridiculously small, but for the rare metals that they've seen pulled from those mountains already, she knows Arafinwë would have been willing to offer a great deal more than Fëanáro is letting her get away with.

She feels a little guilty telling Orthelian that her far-east accent makes every word of Quenya she speaks richer than rain and twice as sweet, mostly because it is not fair to lead her on and partly because, however unwilling she may be to admit it, she does not like seeing the quietly anguished look in Fëanáro’s eyes when he does not think she can see. Her eyes are always keener when it comes to him; it is one of the drawbacks of having been married, but fool that he is, he thinks he is the only one who notices more than he wants to. But however much she dislikes it, she is not willing to give up her one means of wrestling concessions out of him. Besides, she's heard how Orthelain and Artanis debate poetry. She is not in danger of breaking anyone's heart. 

(He leaves the room when she and Orthelian are together. When he speaks the blessings over the boar that the twins and their pack of hunters have brought down together, looking like all the songs of warrior-kings and lesser gods have come home to roost on his brow, she thinks she might be the only one to see the shadows under his eyes and the stiffness in his spine. Orthelian sits beside her and drops the ripest, sweetest fruit of the season on her plate, lips redder than the ripe raspberries glowing in the firelight, and all she can see is Fëanáro, tall and miserably proud, like someone has hurled a spear down the base of his skull. Nerdanel is not in love with Orthelain - though she thinks she could have been quite easily if they had met a several centuries earlier - but neither is she willing to forgive Fëanáro, and she will be happiest when she can leave for the shining white walls of Tirion-upon-Túna and her own apartments in the artists' quarters.)

"You will invite me to the wedding?" he asks, strained but struggling for a laughing politeness, as they break one afternoon for watered wine and bowls of roasted nuts tossed in spices she’s never tasted before. She blinks, because it is the first time he has asked about anything more than business, but there is such soft agony buried under his laughter that she does not remark on it. Yes, he still loves her – and she thinks she could love him as well if only she were less angry with him, and so she will not be too cruel with him. Regret is not the same as an apology, but where an apology will gain forgiveness, regret is at least good enough to win him a little pity.

"If I decide to marry again, you will be the first to know of it," she tells him, and she is only half-joking. She can see the desperate hope flash across his face in a fraction of a second, and she can see the quiet, pained resignation that chases it, three hundred years of longing collapsing into the furrowing of his brow and the tightening of the little muscles just under his eyes. No, she does not think she can marry again, not when she still sees him so well. She wonders if he can see something of the same desire mirrored in her, and what he thinks of it if he does, but Fëanáro was never over-blessed with the Sight, and even the binding of souls can only take you so far. Perhaps he really does think her indifferent.

 _All the better if he does,_ she thinks. There is a little guilt on its heels, yes, but not enough to keep her from wishing the Sundering Sea between them again, and her own city before her. She is quite free, both of Fëanáro and of Orthelian, and mountains will move before she gives up that freedom. She's seen Aulë at work; it is far easier to shift a few tectonic plates than to wring an apology from Fëanáro.

(Though, if he did – it would be far easier to rule at his side than to drag him into a treaty he does not truly want. Well, what of it? Artanis is happily making her parents sick with worry because she wished to be queen of far fields and free skies. Nerdanel does not think herself very well suited for ruling, but she does imagine she could learn if need arose, and it’s not as though her impulsive, absent-minded Fëanáro is any more apt for the job. It would make visiting the boys easier, for one thing, and despite the roundabout way Pityo was talking the last time that hunter friend of his was passing through, she might have to stay for a wedding regardless. Bless the children for thinking they know anything close to subtlety. When they’re married, they’ll learn to see.)

**Author's Note:**

> what's up y'all i'm putting off like fifteen other projects right now (if you're still waiting on another chapter of the med/ren music fic i'm so sorry) but this au grabbed my by the ankles and i ended up writing like 2000 words in a night. anyway depending on how little i want to work on other things i might keep going with this au but for now we'll call it complete.


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